


Promotions, Demotions, and All Sorts of Other Motions

by josiechambers3



Series: Fantastic Beasts One-Shots [1]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Gender-Nonspecific Reader - Freeform, Other, Tina is demoted from auror, and reader comforts her, give Tina some love y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 12:02:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10616505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josiechambers3/pseuds/josiechambers3
Summary: In which Tina gets a demotion from auror at work...but she gets a promotion in your eyes and your heart.*I DO NOT OWN FANTASTIC BEASTS OR YOU. I JUST CREATED THE STORYLINE. Enjoy! :3





	

**Author's Note:**

> Giving Tina some love here. I mean, love ya, Newt, but the others need some attention too. :)  
> Note: in this one the reader lives in the apartment above Tina and Queenie’s, and as where they live is female-only, so it is more implied that the reader is female or at least appears to be physically female, but I still kept pronouns neutral about the reader and you can just pretend that they live in a place where gender doesn’t matter if you want to.

You were in the middle of ironing and folding your newly-washed laundry when, below you, you heard the door to the Goldstein apartment slam shut.

You frowned, setting down a half-ironed blouse. Who could that be? Neither Tina nor Queenie seemed to be the type to slam a door.

You unplugged the iron and cautiously grabbed your wand off of the table, quickly and quietly exiting your apartment to go investigate. It couldn’t hurt to be too careful...especially with Grindelwald being on the run somewhere, anywhere. And especially with the whole Second Salem issue.

Speaking of, perhaps it was Tina who had slammed the door. You had heard all about the Second Salemer incident and the whole scandal – you had been a part of the cleanup group assigned to obliviate all of them. You had obliviated that monster, Mary Lou Barebone, herself.

You walked down the short flight of stairs, quickly arriving at Tina and Queenie’s residence. You knocked on the door cautiously, going in when you felt the door swing slightly open for you.

At first glance, there was no one in the apartment. Then you took another glance around and spotted a small figure flopped on one of the beds in the bedroom.

You walked over to the bedroom, looking down at the woman face-down on the bed. You could tell by the short brown hair and the proper, businesslike way she was dressed that it was Tina.

Your heart clenched inside your chest and went out towards the young witch sprawled miserably on her bed.

Of course, you were close to Tina already, being neighbors and fellow witches. You had both gone to Ilvermorny together and had become friends through Queenie and through both being in Thunderbird. Then you had both gotten jobs at MACUSA as aurors, getting to work together, even, on some cases. You were probably the only other person than Queenie who was really close to Tina, and you knew it and reveled in this fact. More recently, though, you had begun to realize feelings that were more than friendship towards Tina (and you knew Queenie was internally laughing at you; you strongly suspected that she had figured it out before you even had).

You reached out a hand and gently brushed it through Tina’s hair.

She must have been really distraught, because instead of doing what a trained auror like the two of you usually did and pulling her wand on you, she didn’t even look up. She just grunted quietly, shying away from your touch.

You sat down on the bed next to her. “Tina,” you murmured quietly.

“Oh, it’s you,” she mumbled. “Thought it was Queenie.”

“Nope.” You tried to inject some humor into the situation. “If I were Queenie, I would’ve called you ‘Honey’ a couple half dozen times already.”

Tina laughed half-heartedly. But still she refused to get up or even look up at you, hiding her face.

“Tina, look at me, please,” you said quietly.

She shook her head mutely.

“Please,” you pleaded. “I need to see your – your face.” Your beautiful face. You had wanted to say that, but you didn’t dare.

“I don’t want you to see me,” she whispered.

“Tina, it’s okay,” you reassured. “I know what happened, and I don’t blame you. Honestly, if it had been me, I would’ve done the same thing. I wish it had been me, not you. You don’t deserve this.”

“You’re wrong.” Tina finally sat up, but she still refused to look at you. “I did deserve it. I did deserve it,” she said in a hollow voice. “I broke one of the biggest rules. I did magic in front of a No-Maj. I’m lucky I only got demoted. They should have fired me, sent me to prison on the spot.”

Your heart felt like it was twisting, shredding, hearing the pain she thought she was hiding in her voice. But she couldn’t hide it from you. You were no Legilimens like Queenie, but you knew your Tina.

“Maybe I should...make their job easier. Maybe I should just go ahead and resign,” she murmured, almost to herself.

You sucked in a sharp gasp. “Tina, no.”

“There’s no point staying there,” she retorted stiffly, sharply.

“But what about your dreams? You wanted to be an auror so badly. You worked so hard for it.” You could remember a younger Tina in classes with you, too serious for her age. You could remember her working hard day and night. You could remember struggling to keep up with her, struggling to stay with her, worming your way in with her to make sure she would never leave you behind. You could remember her smile the day she was finally a full auror, the most beautiful sight you had ever seen. And your smile had been fit to match it. And your first day on the job...working together...everything.

Tina laughed hollowly. “I’ll never be an auror again. They’ll blacklist me. No one would want me after screwing up that royally.”

You reached out your hand and gently cupped Tina’s tear-stained cheek, bringing her head up to face you. Still, her eyes looked away.

“Don’t...don’t look at me,” she whispered hoarsely. “I’m...I’m not crying. I’m not. I’m....”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with it. I would’ve done the exact same thing.” You laughed. “Honestly, I would’ve probably done worse by now. Maybe set fire to the house or made all the glass shatter or something. I feel like that would’ve made me feel better.”

Tina laughed with you. This time, it seemed a bit less hollow. Then, to your surprise, she took the water glass on her bedside table and threw it to the ground with a crash.

“You’re right,” she said. “That was very therapeutic.” Of course, she quickly grabbed her wand and fixed it immediately after with a quick “reparo” and a wave of her wand.

The two of you laughed. Tina rubbed furiously away at her tears, but you shooed her hands away and gently wiped them away. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve been demoted at work,” you declared. “You’ve been promoted in my eyes. Morally. And in my heart.” You clutched your heart dramatically with one hand.

Tina’s heart fluttered. Flattered, she had no idea what to say.

“How do you think I could get demoted?” you asked Tina suddenly.

She gaped. “What?”

“Well, obviously I’m going to get myself demoted so I can keep working with you,” you said decidedly.

“______, don’t do that!” Tina gasped.

“Maybe I should hex Graves,” you mused aloud, ignoring her. “Or maybe turn the coffee into tea. I know they’d hate that. But no, Queenie would be on my tail for that. Maybe I should put one of those No-Maj whoopee cushions in the president’s chair during an important meaning? I can put a disillusionment charm on it so she’ll never notice it.”

Tina tried to hold back her giggles and failed miserably. “Seriously though, ______, don’t get yourself demoted just for me.”

“But I want to,” you insisted. “Being an auror isn’t the same without you. Plus, that’ll make them realize how stupid they were being when they lose not one, but two of their two newest, youngest, best aurors.” You paused. “Ooh, maybe I should just resign. That’d send a stronger, more defiant message.”

Tina sighed. Just as you knew when Tina would or wouldn’t budge in her beliefs and actions, she knew the same about you. She smiled a bit ruefully as you began dramatically listing everything you would say in the howler resignation letter you would send to Graves and Picquery.

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” Tina whispered quietly, fondly.

You paused in the middle of a particularly descriptive curse describing what Graves could do with his rear end. “Huh? Did you say something?”

“No, no, nothing.” Tina was starting to feel her sensibility come back to her, and she was becoming herself once more. A faint blush painted her cheeks. If you had heard that....

Suddenly, the apartment door burst open again.

“Teenie?” Queenie’s worried voice came as she hurried into the apartment, hair frizzy in indication of her hurry to get there. “Tina, are you all right? I got off of work as soon as I could.”

“I’m okay, Queenie,” Tina said. It went unspoken that she was all right because of you, but you and Tina both knew that, and with a little secretive smile, Queenie knew as well.

“Yeah,” you spoke up as you rolled over and spread out more on Tina’s bed. “Tuna here is in good hands.”

“Hey,” Tina protested weakly, a small smile on her lips at the nickname.

“Hey to you too, Tuna,” you teased.

Tina couldn’t help it. She laughed. You soon joined in, Queenie’s musical laughter joining in as well. The three of you sat there, in the small bedroom, laughing in the face of the struggles you were facing, laughing in the face of the danger that was to come. Let it come. For now, you were as okay as you all could be. And you would face everything together.

Queenie smiled secretively as she watched you and Tina collapse on each other, your laughter pure and Tina’s slightly hysterical, tears running down her face again.

\---

Later that night, the three of you lay in your respective beds, thinking your respective thoughts.

You were upstairs in your bed, still thinking about what to put in the howler you were going to send to Graves tomorrow as a giant “F-you.”

Tina was below you in her bed, wondering when her feelings for you had turned into the love she had been so desperately hiding from her entire life, trying to shove it aside and paste on that serious face that had begun to be so hard to put on lately. She would have to work hard to get promoted back to auror with you.

And Queenie was next to her sister, listening to her thoughts and the thoughts of the sleepy person one floor above them, smiling and glad that despite the losses they had suffered, the two had found what they were looking for.

**Author's Note:**

> Yayyy! So everything’s going to be all right, right?! :D  
> I probably horridly destroyed Tina’s personality. I just feel like even someone who is as serious as Tina breaks down on occasion, especially when they’ve lost something so important to them as Tina has (thank goodness she regains it later though). And I tried to portray this but still be true to Tina’s personality...and it probably failed horribly, but ah well, I tried. I hope you enjoyed this! Stay tuned! :)


End file.
